This mid-winter festive gathering celebrates the achievements of Arts & Access midway through a year of offering greater accessibility.

Arts & Access launched last July to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act through the lens of the arts. Currently, thirty arts organizations have teamed up with social service agencies to offer more than fifty events through June 2016, that intentionally reach people with disabilities and their family and friends. The diversity of programming include live theatre performances that are audio described and open captioned for people with visual and hearing loss; sensory friendly performances for children with autism, and a dance workshop for Parkinson patients and their caregivers.

Experience Arts & Access seeks to raise awareness of the needs as well as the abilities of persons with disabilities. Featured artist and National Storytelling Champion Anne Thomas will perform autobiographical stories crafted with a mix of dark humor, high energy and rare common sense. She speaks not only to survivors of disability, illness and tragedy, but to everyone who has a body, a dream, obstacles, hope and determination.

Experience will also allow visitors to explore an arts experience through the simulated reality of a person with a physical, sensory, or cognitive limitation. Guests will be encouraged to test the different technologies that are available, such as audio description and open captioning, voice activated wheel chairs, plus a tactile exploration of a 3-D image of a painting.

The event is FREE and open to the everyone, particularly someone with a disability. Please RSVP to attend at info@lvartscouncil.org or 610-437-5915. Light refreshments will be provided.

Our newest PROMOTIONAL VIDEO for Arts & Access

We’ve just released the second in our ongoing collection of Arts & Access promotional videos!

This edition gives a more intimate look at the Summer and Fall 2015 programming that supports our mission for inclusive arts in our region. The organizations involved have produced quite a variety of accessible arts experiences – theatre performances, visual arts classes and exhibitions, and dance workshops – all celebrating and representing a wide variety of disabilities.

Beautifully produced by Marco Calderon, our hearts are touched each time we see the laughing faces of the participants and encouraging words of those involved. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of the celebration thus far! We are looking forward to the events planned for this year – we are only halfway through and we have already made such an impact.

If you didn’t catch our last edition featuring the Launch Party in July 2015, here it is!

ARTICLE: See the Music, Hear the Art!

In October, SATORI played a classical music concert for an audience who couldn’t hear it – and it was wonderful.

SATORI is participating in the Arts & Access initiative of the Lehigh Valley Arts Council, a yearlong celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, seen through the lens of the arts. As a performing arts organization with deep roots locally, we wanted to be a part of this special series of events – and thought we already had an ace in the hole. For almost two decades, SATORI has been presenting in-school music education programs that combine classical music with an array of vibrant images and drawings, projected overhead as the musicians play. Surely the addition of a visual component to a music performance might make it more appropriate for a deaf or hard-of-hearing audience?READ MORE on our blog

Lehigh Valley’s nonprofit arts community pumps $200 million annually into the region’s economy

The two tickets to a live opera rebroadcast at Allentown Symphony Hall were just the first things Jane Wells Schooley spent money on Thursday evening. Before the show, she and her granddaughter had dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant. They planned to get dessert at Rita’s Italian ice afterward.

Still, Schooley, of Lower Nazareth Township, considered the outing an excellent value.

“To be able to expose a young person to opera without spending $200!” she whispered as the curtains parted to a full-screen, high-definition view of the pit orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. “We are extremely fortunate to have the arts that we have in the Lehigh Valley.”

Fortunate indeed — and in more than one sense. The Valley’s many nonprofit arts and cultural organizations do more than provide diverse entertainment and intellectual stimulation. They also boost the local economy as patrons like Schooley, eager to take advantage of the region’s relatively inexpensive offerings, open their wallets before, during and after the main event.